Is Social Media Making us More Narcissistic?

9/14/2024

Narcissism is trending. It seems like half the songs I hear are about somebody's narcissistic ex. Or gaslighting. While these are actual psychological diagnoses that are often misunderstood by the general public, and the increase in popularity is likely correlated to the increase in awareness, there is some evidence that the former may be on the rise. Or, perhaps, our current technology enables a means to bringing these more latent innate qualities to the surface.

I stumbled upon an op-ed piece in the New York Times from 2016 addressing the question of whether social media is, in fact, making us more narcissistic. Now, it has been nearly a decade later and a great deal has changed (although 2016 was an election year that also featured one of our current candidate), and certainly social media has become much more ubiquitous. This is pre TIkTok, and Instagram would have been strictly photos. I mean teenagers were probably still on Facebook!

I would like you to read the article below and take the test, and then reflect on whether or not you believe that social media is contributing to increased narcissism and, if so, whether or not that's something we should be concerned about. If this article was written in 2024, how do you think it would be different?

Article: https://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/14/opinion/narcissism-is-increasing-so-youre-not-so-special.html (Sign in with Google using your school account)
Test: https://personality-testing.info/tests/NPI/

19 Comments

Deanda Lamping

9/15/2024 08:49:08 pm

I do believe that social media is the reason why our minds are so easily pliable. They are molding our brains to believe and act a certain way. I think that a good chunk of kids and young adults are aware of this but I also believe that some are softening their walls to what they are allowing themselves to get into instead of taking the right precautions as to what they watch and post online. None of this has to all be bad, I'm just saying that we have become softer in our moral beliefs and more aggressive in building a public network. We have all done it, and I believe that social media can also be a place of a way to connect on a different front line. But in the end we might all become a little narcissistic, it should just stay in the social feed and not in our every day lives. I think if this article was written in 2024 it would be more of a zealous statement/test rather than a general across the board factual commentary.

Emylee Perkins

9/15/2024 10:12:32 pm

I agree with you about how the article would be in 2024; I feel like today they rely a lot on personal context to groups of people and emotional appeal. I also think that our statements about narcissism were similar. I like how you explained that narcissism doesn't have to be super harmful as long as it is controlled and I also highlighted that things could stay on a small scale and non-political level.

Megan

9/16/2024 08:23:18 am

I agree with your statement! I do also think that some people who run social media are trying to make people think differently and use our brains like theirs for the social media benefit or for theirs too.

nic S.

9/16/2024 09:31:03 am

I agree that it has changed our perception of morals and what is really important.

Mariah

9/16/2024 02:53:11 pm

I agree that our narcissism online should stay on social media. Why should we talk about our excessive number of likes when we are hanging out with our friends? It is a weird conversation topic, yet it's what we discuss anyways because it is such a "norm" in our world.

Emylee Perkins

9/15/2024 10:10:07 pm

I scored a 23 on the test so now I'm scared. Anyways, I believe that social media contributes as much as anything else to narcissism. People always try to post things that will make them look like they want to and attract praise and attention from others. I do think that there are plenty of ways to achieve this without the help of social media too, though. Before the widespread use of it there were still celebrities on movies and people using activities for the same purposes. I don't think we should be too worried about it, but that's also the way I feel about some certain things. Maybe in drastic situations we should be exceedingly careful to notice and prevent narcissism in social media, like if a dictatorship is forming. Otherwise I would argue a chunk of it is just people exercising freedom of speech and expression, etc. I think if the article was posted in 2024 it would focus more on exploration of other beings via the aid of TikTok and other platforms for one's personal gain.

Deanda Lamping

9/15/2024 10:39:36 pm

I got a 15! Don't be scared. I think you are a 110% correct with the exercising freedom and expression because I also believe that is the base origin to why social media was created. For people to grow in a different light. I also agree with separating political stand points, they can be even more persuasive.

Mariah

9/15/2024 10:44:20 pm

Although I do believe that social media contributes to narcissism, I don't believe that it increases it. People were very narcissistic before social media so I think that the internet merely changed the factors that makes one so full of themself. We also need to take self-consciousness into consideration. People will do anything for a few likes on instagram or Tik Tok, but is that their narcissistic side or their self-consciousness taking control? I think it depends on the person, and what their motives are for posting in the first place. I could even argue that social media decreases narcissism, because no matter how pretty or perfect you think you are, the internet gives you access to absolutely everything, and you can always stumble across someone that seems to be even more pretty and perfect than you.

Megan

9/16/2024 08:20:05 am

Yes, I agree with your point, I also believe that narcissistic behavior started way before social media.

Brylee Ganske

9/16/2024 08:43:40 am

I agree, that is depends on the person. There are other things that come light when talking about how you see yourself, but I do feel like social media has definitely both helped our egos and made them worse, some people have gain a social media persona of who the should be, and then in the real world have no respect for themselves.

Emylee Perkins

9/16/2024 10:44:19 pm

I admire with the way that you explained that social media acts as a vessel to spread narcissism, as I agree that it doesn't significantly increase it on its own. Another great point you outlined is that self-consciousness plays a large factor in the way people act. I would like to add that some of this behavior portrayed in social media posts may not be malicious or self-serving but simply the product of people trying to fit in with friends and be comfortable in their place in society.

Megan Aiello

9/16/2024 08:18:12 am

I do believe that social media has affected people to be more narcissistic but I also believe that social media has also helped some narcissistic behaviors because they use the tools from creating or watching to help themselves either say what they want to say publicly or either make them calm down from someone else comment by watching a reel or a post.

Chanci Phillips

9/16/2024 08:53:55 am

I think that social media can help put narcissists in their place too because there are always haters commenting.

Mariah

9/16/2024 02:54:59 pm

I agree. Watching videos of yourself can truly be very humbling and many narcissistic people would probably find that they come across as cocky, embarrassing, or cringey when the post online.

Chanci Phillips

9/16/2024 08:40:15 am

Social media is the root of our enjoyment and insecurities. I agree with the website that social medias are an accelerant in the showcasing Ones narcism. It may egg on or boost our egos but it is still a trait of mental health and I do not think medias are making more narcissists. Honestly I don’t think we will ever go back from social media, humans will most likely adapt to our technologies and form new mannerisms that will seem outrageous to older generations. If this article was written by GenZ, this article would go along the same ideas but I think with social medias our human flaws are highlighted. (I couldn’t take the test because NY Times wouldn’t let me scroll without subscribing.)

Brylee Ganske

9/16/2024 08:53:10 am

I agree with you, also had a hard time with NY Times, I hate news sites that do this.

Brylee Ganske

9/16/2024 08:51:28 am

After reading the article I was kinda worried about our society. It is good that we are getting more confident, but when there is too much of it, it can become a delusion and a risk to you and others. I believe social media is partly the reason, it has warped our thought on our self; many of us want our outside appearance to be perfect, sometime so perfect its fake. My score was a 4/40, I honestly glad it wasn't super high nor 0, this is because I don't want to be someone who is constantly obsessed with their self and I don't want to be someone who has no respect for them self and just let themselves get pushed around .

nicolas sessions

9/16/2024 09:27:52 am

I believe that social media is giving us the tools to act more narcissistic. With it we cherish shallow likes and affirmations from strangers rather than real praise and self accomplishment; we base it off others. Also with social media we have an even larger lens to look at others and compare ourselves to them, whether we see ourselves as better or worse than them we notice. This causes either puffed up pride or shame for exceeding others standard or falling short of them.

Daniel Davidson

9/16/2024 10:09:40 am

Interestingly, I don't believe that social media generally increases our narcissism, that is our love of self, but rather increases our need to feel loved by others. Because of the whole "like" mentality, and the sort of unreal representation that people post- people are always striving to represent themselves as very happy or beautiful or popular, etc. I think that as people try to attain these likes they end up putting themselves down, feeling like they don't measure up to the social media perfection.

Is Social Media Making us More Narcissistic?

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